Title

Music and Memory

Broad Question

How does listening to different types of music affect someone's memory?

Specific Question

Does classical, pop, jazz, soul, rock, or rap music improve or affect your memory at all?

Hypothesis

It is hypothesized that the tests people take while listening to classical music will have better scores then the tests people take while listening to music with lyrics.
Rational: The research in the past has shown that people who listen to classical or soothing music during a test do better on it then the people taking the test while listening to music with drumbeats or lyrics.

Graph of Hypothesis

Variables

Independent Variable: The type of music.

Dependent Variable: Memory test score (%)

Variables That Need To Be Controlled: Background noises while tests are being taken, volume of music, place where test is being taken, etc.

---

---

---

---

General Plan

Recruit ten different test subjects. Have each of them take a test while listening to classical music. Then give them five more different tests while listening to pop, rock, jazz, soul, and rap music. Average out all the scores of the tests taken for each different type of music.

Potential Problems And Solutions

People or objects distracting test subjects from test, running out of time and having to cut tests short.
Solutions: Putting up a Do Not Disturb sign, waiting a week and doing the tests from the beginning so that the test subject doesn't remember the answers.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns

Music damaging people's hearing, anger or distress because of dislike of songs, extra sharp pencils poking and hurting test subject.

Experimental Design

(add the correct headings from the experimental design page before beginning)

Resources and Budget Table

Item	Number needed	Where I will get this	Cost
Zune MP3 Player	1	Home	$0.00
Zune Stereo	1	Home	$0.00
iPad	1	School	$0.00
Memory Tests	6	Home	$0.00

Detailed Procedure

1. Gather materials needed: MP3 player or iPod with songs downloaded on them (“Water Music”, “Fireflies”, “What a Wonderful World”, “Hound Dog”, “I Will Always Love You”, and “Switch”), speaker or stereo system for MP3 player or iPod, six different memory tests, a timer, blank pieces of paper, pencils, and Ms. Bailey’s room to perform experiment.
2. Recruit ten different people to be test takers.
3. Take one test taker in Ms. Bailey’s room and subject will sit down at a table.
4. Read script (see script at end).
5. Begin to play the first song on the stereo at a volume of 6.
6. Immediately hand subject Test A.
7.Let subject look at test for exactly one minute on timer.
8. Take memory test away and give test taker a blank piece of paper and a pencil while music is still playing.
9. Time another two minutes to let the test taker write as many words as he/she remembers on the piece of paper.
10. Repeat steps 4-9 with the same test taker, but play the second song and use Test B. Repeat until all six songs and all six tests have been used
11. Repeat steps 3-9 with nine more test takers, so that there are ten test takers who have taken the tests in total.
12. Take every test and divide the number of words right by the number of words in all. Multiply that answer by one-hundred and write this answer down as a percent on each test.
13. Take all the first tests from each test taker and add all of the scores up. Divide that answer by ten. Record that number on a piece of paper under “Classical”.
14. Take all the second tests from every test taker and add all of the scores up. Divide that answer by ten. Record that number the piece of paper under “Pop”.
15. Repeat step 12 with the third tests and record that number under “Jazz”.
16. Repeat step 12 with the fourth tests and record that number under “Rock”.
17. Repeat step 12 with the fifth test and record that number under “Soul”.
18. Repeat step 12 with the sixth tests and record that number under “Rap”.
19. Compare the scores under each genre and look at which genre has the highest score and which genre has the lowest score.

Script:
Hello. Today you’re going to be taking a memory test. I am going to hand you a list of words. You will have exactly one minute to look at them. Then I will hand you a blank piece of paper and a pencil. You will have exactly two minutes to write down as many of the words you remember in the right order. We will do this with six different tests. Please do not talk or ask questions during this process.
Tests: __https://docs.google.com/a/students.jbartlett.k12.nh.us/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At6i9_ChzuPBdFlYblpuZHlxRkwwQmFGNjNPR2dUR1E#gid=0__

Photo List

Test subjects taking memory tests

Data Table

SFP Data table

---

---

---

---

Data Analysis

All Raw Data

Graphs

Photos

photo.PNG

photo.PNG

photo.PNG

photo.PNG

photo 2.JPG

photo 2.JPG

photo 1.JPG

photo 1.JPG

The average test score for the classical music was 37.6. The average test score for the pop music was also 37.6. The average score for the jazz music was 37.8. The average for the rock music was 39.8, and the average for the rap music was 47.3. The highest score was 55.8, for the soul music by Whitney Houston.

Conclusion

The experiment was designed to test how people’s memory change while listening to different types of music. The results show the people listening to soul music did better on a memory test, and people listening to classical and pop music did the worst on a memory test. The average test score for classical and pop music was 37.6. The average score for jazz music was 37.8. The average for the rock music was 39.8. The average for rap music was 47.3. The average for the soul music was 55.8.

Discussion

The experiment question was how do different types of music affect people’s memory? It is decided that the experiment results do answer the question. The answer was that listening to soul and rap music improves memory more than rock, jazz, pop, and classical does. Classical and pop music improves memory the least. It was hypothesised that classical music would have better results than music with lyrics. This was wrong, because the classical music had the worst results and the soul and rap music had the best. Both the soul and the rap music had lyrics.
The average score for the tests taken while listening to classical music was 37.6%. The average score for the pop music was also 37.6%. The average for the jazz music was 37.8. For the rock music it was 39.8. The average for the soul music was 55.8. The rap music average was 47.3. The test taken while listening to the soul music had the best results out of all the tests taken for each person. The results while listening to the jazz and rock music didn’t seem to be affected by the song. Almost every test subject had the rap music test as their second best. Most people had either the classical or the pop music test as their worst.
The research done on the subject before has shown that classical music will improve your memory more than louder music with more percussion or with lyrics. This made the results difficult to explain, because the experiment had such a different outcome. One of the problems during this experiment was when the test subject began to talk or ask questions during the experiment, which wasn’t allowed. Another problem was being interrupted while doing a trial by a noise unrelated to the experiment, or being interrupted accidentally by a different person. If this experiment was run again, something that could be changed is guaranteeing more privacy during the trials, and also being more clear with the directions. The technology used to conduct the experiment was an iPad to film each trial, and a Zune MP3 Player to play the songs. A stereo to play the songs louder was also used.
People who are studying for an exam or a test could use the information from this experiment by listening to the music that was found improves memory. Listening to this music could also help in order to learn a foreign language, or anything else that requires remembering things. Future experiments that could be conducted based on the results of this one are things like how the volume of the music affects memory, or how everyday sounds (birds chirping, pens tapping) affect it.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

The experiment results can help people if they are trying to perform a task that requires having a good memory. Studying for a test, learning a foreign language, or just doing everyday things that require memory. People can listen to the music that had good results in the experiment, which will hopefully help them

Background Research

Research in the past has shown that people who listen to classical or soothing music do better on memory tests than people who listen to loud music with lyrics or drumbeats. The louder music distracts the subject and the soothing music puts the subject's mind at ease.

References

http://www.ehow.com/list_5965674_different-music-affect-memory-studying.html
http://clearinghouse.missouriwestern.edu/manuscripts/230.php
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_the_music_we_listen_to_affect_our_memory

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to find out which genre of music affected memory the most. It was hypothesized that classical music would have the best results and the rap music would have the worst. The genres of music tested were classical, pop, rock, jazz, soul, and rap. Ten random test subjects took six different memory tests, while listening to a different genre of music for each test. The genre of music that had the best results was soul music, closely followed by rap. The classical and pop music genre’s had the worst results.
The average of words remembered were: soul music, 55.8%; The average for the rap music was 47.3%. The average for the rock music was 39.8. The average for the jazz music was 37.8. The average for the classical and pop was 37.6%.